Stephen Wade on Hobart Smith

Folkstreams will soon be streaming “Catching the Music” a PBS film featuring Stephen Wade whose “Banjo Dancing” performance ran for nearly ten years at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC. Stephen Wade now contributes pieces on traditional music for NPR’s “All Things Considered” . He will be performing a tribute to Hobart Smith at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA Oct 13 and 14.

“These shows, written especially for the Birchmere’s audience, explore one of America’s greatest traditional musicians, Hobart Smith (1897-1965): his inspired virtuosity and startling range of skills, his upbringing in rural Virginia, and the broader musical worlds he inhabited. The program includes banjo, fiddle, guitar, piano, pump organ, harmonica, mandolin, percussive dance, and singing with musicians Mike Craver, James Leva, and Zan McLeod. Similar to Stephen’s past theater pieces, the evening is threaded with the spoken word, and includes a special slide presentation drawn from Hobart Smith’s letters, family photos, and scenes from the Saltville of his youth and his travels late in life to make a new music for us all.”

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